264 TREES 



Sierras while the snow is eight to ten feet deep upon the 

 buttressed base of the huge trunk. It is worth a journey, 

 and that with some hardship in it, to see these trees with all 

 their leafy spray, gold-lined with the multitude of little 

 staminate flowers that sift pollen gold-dust over every- 

 thing, and fill the air with it. The pistillate flowers, 

 minute, pale green, crowd along the ends of the leafy 

 sprays, their cone scales spread to receive the vitalizing 

 dust brought by the wind. 



When spring arrives and starts the flower procession 

 among the lower tree-tops, the spray of the Big Tree is 

 covered with green cones that mature at the end of the 

 second season. They are woody, two to three inches long, 

 and spread their scales wide at a given signal, showering 

 the surrounding woods with the abundant harvest of their 

 minute winged seeds. Each scale bears six to eight of 

 them, each with a circular wing that fits it for a long 

 journey. The cones hang empty on the trees for years. 



The leaves of the Big Tree are of the close, twig-hugging, 

 scaly type, never exceeding a haK inch in length on the 

 most exuberant-growing shoots. For the most part they 

 are from one fourth to one eighth of an inch in length, 

 sharp pointed, ridged, curved to clasp the stem, and shin- 

 gled over the leaves above. 



John Muir believes there is no absolute limit to the ex- 

 istence of any tree. Accident alone, he thinks, not the 

 wearing out of vital organs, accounts for their death. The 

 fungi that kill the silver fir inevitably before it is three 

 hundred years old touch no limb of the Big Tree with decay. 

 A sequoia must be blown down, undermined, burned down, 

 or shattered by lightning. Old age and disease pass these 

 trees by. Their heads, rising far above the spires of fir and 



